BOOK II

GORLOIS

I

Radamanth the goldsmith was held in no little honour and esteem by the

townsfolk of Winchester. Even the market women and the tavern loungers

stood aside for him in the street as he made his stately march in black

robe and chain of gold. He was a man possessed of those outward virtues

so well suited to commend a character to the favour of the world. He

was venerable, rich, and much given to charity. His coffers were often

open to infirmary and church; his house near the market square was as

richly furnished as any noble's, and he gave good dinners. No man in

Winchester had a finer aptitude for pleasing all classes. He was smooth

and intelligent to the rich, bland and neighbourly to his equals, quite

a father to the poor, and moreover he had no wife. Every Sabbath he

went at the head of his household to the great basilica church in the

chief square, worshipped and did alms as a rich merchant should.

Disinterestedness is a somewhat unique virtue, and it must not be

supposed that Radamanth lived with his eye on eternity alone. It must

be confessed that self-interest was often the dial of his philanthropy,

and expediency to him the touchstone of action. Nothing furthers

commerce better than a pious and merciful reputation, and Radamanth

knew the inestimable value of a solid and goodly exterior. Wise in his

generation, he nailed the Cross to his door, and plied his balances

prosperously behind the counter.

Thus when the girl Igraine trudged sad-eyed into Winchester in her gown

of grey, and appeared before him as a homeless child of the Church,

he took her in like the good uncle of the fairy tale, and proffered

her his house for home. Possibly he pitied her for her plight after

the burning of Avangel, for she seemed much cast down in mind and very

deserving of a kinsman's proper comfort. Then she was of noble family,

a coincidence that no doubt weighed heavily in Radamanth's opinion.

It was good to have so much breeding in the house, to be able to say

with a smirk to his friends and neighbours, "My niece, the daughter

of Malgo, Lord of the Redlands, slain and plundered of the heathen in

Kent." Igraine brought quite a lustre into Radamanth's home. He beamed

on her with sleek pride and satisfaction, gave her rich stuffs for

dress, a goodly chamber, and a little Silurian maid to wait. Moreover,

he gave his one child and daughter Lilith a grave lecture on sisterly

companionship, advised her to study Igraine's gentle manners, and to

profit by her aristocratic and educated influence. Luckily Lilith was a

quiet girl, not given to jealousy or much self-trust, and Igraine found

as warm a welcome as her unhappy heart could wish.

No few days had passed since that dawn on the hill above Winchester

when Igraine had started up from under the green boughs to find

Pelleas gone. They had been days of keen trouble to the girl. Often

and often had she hated herself for her vain delay, her over-tender

procrastination, that had brought misery in place of joy. The past

was now a wounded dream to her, ripe and beautiful, yet fruited with

such mute pain as only a woman's heart can feel. Igraine had conjured

up love like some Eastern house of magic, only to see its domes faint

goldly into a gloom of night. She felt as much for Pelleas as for

herself, and there was a blight upon her that seemed as though it could

never pass. She was not a woman given to tears. Her trouble seemed to

live in her eyes with pride, and to stiffen her stately throat into a

pillar of rebellious strength.

Not a word, not a sign had come to her of Pelleas. Taken into

Radamanth's house, served, petted, flattered, she went drearily

through its daily round, sat at its board, talked with the guestfolk,

while hope waited wide-eyed in her heart and kept her brave. Pelleas

had told her that he was for Winchester, and assuredly, she thought,

she might find him and confess all. She often kept watch hour by hour

at her window overlooking the street. In her walks she had a glance

for almost every man who passed on foot or horseback, till she grew

almost ashamed of herself, and feared for her modesty. Her eyes always

hungered for a red shield and harness, a black horse, a face grieving

in dark reserve and silence. At night she was often quite a child in

herself. She would take the little gold cross from her bosom and brood

over it. She even found herself whispering to the man as she lay in

bed, and stretching out her arms to him in the dark as in pain. For all

her pride and courage she was often bowed down and broken when no one

was near to see.

It was not long before she found a confidant to befriend her in her

distress of heart. Lilith, the goldsmith's daughter, had great brown

eyes, soft and very gentle; her face was wistful and white under

her straightly combed hair; she was a quiet girl, timid, but very

thoughtful for others. The two appealed each other by contrast. Lilith

had soon read trouble in Igraine's eyes, and had nestled to her in

soul, ready with many little kindnesses that were like dew in a dry

season. Igraine unbent to her, and suffered herself to be enfolded by

the other's sympathy.

One day she told her the whole distressful tale. It was in the garden

behind the house, a green and pleasant place opening on the river, and

flanked with stone. The two were in an arbour framed of laurels, its

floor mosaicked with quaint tiles. Igraine sat on the bench with Lilith

on a stool at her feet. They were both sad, for Lilith was a girl whose

heart answered strongly to any tale of unhappy mood. Igraine had made

mere truth of the matter, neither justifying nor embellishing. Her

clear bleak words were the more pathetic for their very simpleness.

Lilith had been crying softly to herself. Her brown eyes were very

misty when she turned her white face to Igraine's with a grievous

little sigh.

"What can I say to you?" she said.

"Nothing," said Igraine, taking her hands and smiling through misery.

"I have never the words I wish for, and when I feel most I can say

little."

"You understand; that is enough for me."

"Ah," said Lilith, with a fine blush and a shy look, "I think I can

feel for you, Igraine, almost to the full, though I seem such an Agnes.

I am woman enough to have learnt something that means all to a girl. I

am very sad for your sake."

"Child."

"I will try to comfort you."

Igraine's eyes burned. She kissed Lilith on the lips and was mute.

For a while they sat with their arms about each other, not daring to

look into each other's eyes. Then the girl kissed Igraine's cheek, and

touched her hair with her slim fingers.

"Perhaps I can help you," she said.

"Help me?"

Lilith flushed, and spoke very quickly.

"Yes--to find Pelleas. I tell you what I will do. I will send a friend

of mine to question all the guards at the gates whether they have seen

such a one as you have described ride in."

Igraine hugged the girl.

"And then you say this Pelleas was in the King's service. I have never

heard of a knight so named; but there are so many, and I hear only

gossip. I know a girl in the King's household. I will go and ask her

whether she knows of a tall, dark knight whose colour is red, who rides

a black horse, and is named Pelleas. You do not know how much I may not

learn from her. I feel wise already."

Igraine plucked up heart and spirit. She felt sorry that she had

not spoken of her trouble to Lilith before, for she had lost many

days trusting to her own eyes and her little knowledge of the town.

She kissed the girl again, and almost laughed. Then in a flash she

remembered a speech of Pelleas's which she had forgotten till that

moment.

"Fool that I am," she said; "the very chain he wore he had it from your

father, and here in my bosom I have the little cross that nigh lost him

his life. Surely this may help us in some measure."

Lilith looked at the cross that Igraine had taken from under her tunic,

where it hung by a little chain about her neck.

"We will show it to my father," said the girl, "and ask him thereof. He

may have record of such a chain, and to whom it was sold. Who knows?

Come, Igraine, we will show it him after supper if you wish."

And again Igraine kissed her.

It was Radamanth's custom, after the business of the day had been

capped by an honest supper, to sit in his parlour and drink wine with

certain of his friends. He had a particular gossip, an old fellow named

Eudol, who had been a merchant in his time, and had retired with some

wealth. These two would spend many an evening together over their wine,

taking enough to make their tongues wag, but never exceeding the decent

warmth of moderation. Eudol was a lean old gentleman with a white beard

and a most patriarchal manner. He was much of a woman's creature, and

loved a pretty face and a plump figure, and he would father any wench

who came in his way with a benignity that often made him odious. He had

a soft voice, and a sleek, silken way with him that made folk think him

the most tender-souled creature imaginable.

These two were at their wine together when Lilith and Igraine went in

to them that evening. Radamanth since his spouse's death had grown

as much a father as trade and the getting of gold permitted. In his

selfish, matter-of-fact way he was fond of this timid, brown-eyed

creature he called daughter. His affections boasted more of science

than of sentiment. Lilith, unusually bold, went and sat on the arm of

his chair, and patted his face in a half-shy, half-mischievous fashion.

Eudol laughed, and shook his head with a critical look at Igraine.

"More begging," quoth he. "So, cousin Igraine, you look fresh as a

yellow rose in the sun."

Igraine laughed, and sat down to talk to him, while Lilith questioned

her father. The goldsmith bore his daughter's caresses with a sublime

and patient resignation. She began to tell him about the chain, keeping

Igraine and her tale wholly in the background. When she had said enough

for the sake of explanation, she showed her father the cross, and

waited his words.

Radamanth fingered it, turned it this way and that, and found his own

mark thereon.

"I wrought and sold three such chains as you describe," he said; "but

what is such a chain to you, child, and whence came this cross?"

Lilith flushed, hesitated, and glanced at Igraine.

"The cross is mine," quoth the latter.

Radamanth eyed her as though he were not a little desirous of

questioning her further, but there was a very palpable coldness on his

niece's face that forbade any such curiosity. He had a most hearty

respect for the girl's pride, and never dreamt of any degree of tyranny

that might seem vulgarly plebeian to her more noble notions. The

remembrance of her parentage and estate had always a most emollient

effect upon his mind.

"Well, well," he said, "I'll meddle discreetly, and go no further than

I am asked."

Eudol winked at the company at large.

"Never ask a lady an uncomfortable question," quoth he.

Lilith beamed at him shyly.

"You are very wise," she said.

Radamanth rose from his chair, and going to a great press took a book

from it. He set the book on the table, and after much turning of pages,

discovered the record that he sought. Following the scrawling lines

with his finger, he read aloud from the ledger:

"Gold chain of special weight, large links, two gold crosses pendant

over either breast. Of such three were wrought and sold.

"The first to Bedivere, knight of the King's guard.

"_Nota bene_--unpaid for."

Eudol set up a sudden brisk cackle.

"The man, the very man, I'll swear."

Igraine gave him a look that made his mouth close like a trap and his

body stiffen in his chair. Radamanth continued his reading.

"The second chain was sold to John of Glastonbury. The third to the

most noble Uther, Prince of Britain."

Radamanth closed the book, and returned it to the press--orderly even

in trifles. Lilith and Igraine had exchanged a mute look that meant

everything. Slipping away without a word to either man, they went to

Igraine's bedroom, a great chamber hung with heavy red hangings and

richly garnished. A carved bed stood in the centre. The two girls sat

on it and stared into each other's eyes. Igraine was breathing fast,

and her face was pale.

"Know you Bedivere?" she said.

Lilith shook her head.

"Or John of Glastonbury?"

"No."

"Or Uther?"

Lilith's brown eyes brightened.

"Noble Uther I have often seen," she said, "riding through Winchester

on a black horse. A dark man, and sad-looking. He would be much like

your Pelleas."

Igraine was very white. There seemed a race of thoughts in her as she

played the statue with her eyes at gaze, and her lips drawn into a line

of red. Her hands hung limply over the edge of the bed, and she seemed

stiffened into musings. Lilith sidled close to her, and put her warm

arms round her neck, her soft cheek to Igraine's.

"We may learn yet," she said.

"Uther," said Igraine as in a dream.

"Can it be?"

Igraine drew a long breath and sighed like one waking.

"I must see him," was all she said.

Lilith kissed her.

"I will go to the King's house to-morrow," she said; "the girl may tell

us something of use. I have heard it said that Uther has not been in

Winchester for many a week. Ah, Igraine, if it should be he."

They looked deep in each other's eyes, and smiled as only women can

smile when their hearts are fast in sympathy. Then they went to bed in

Igraine's bed, and slept the night through in each other's arms.

Early next day they went together to the King's house that stood by

the gardens and the river. At the kitchen quarters Lilith inquired for

the girl who served as a maid in the household. Being constrained by a

most polite lackey, she went in to see the woman, while Igraine kept

her pride and herself in the porch, and watched the people go by in

the street. Presently Lilith came out again with a frown on her mild

face, and her brown eyes troubled. She took Igraine aside into the

gardens that lined the great highway skirting the palace, and led her

to where a fountain played in the sun, and stone seats ringed a quiet

pool. White pigeons were there, coquetting and sweeping the ground with

their spread tails, their low cooing mingling with the musical plashing

of the water. An old beggar woman sat hunched in a corner, and three

or four children were feeding the fish in the pool. All about them the

gardens were thickly shadowed with great trees and glistening lusty

laurels.

Igraine looked into Lilith's face.

"I see no news in your eyes," she said.

Lilith brooded at the pool and the children, and seemed disquieted,

even angry.

"I have learnt little, Igraine," she said, "and am disappointed. I

will tell you how it was. The old wretch who oversees the women found

me talking with the girl Gwenith, read me a sermon on interfering with

household work, scolded me for a young gossip, and had me packed off

like a beggar."

"What a harridan!"

"I have learnt a little."

"Quick!--I thirst."

Lilith hurried on for sympathy.

"The girl has never heard of a knight named Pelleas," she said, "and

there are so many dark men about Court that your description was little

guide. As for Uther, no one knows where he is at present. Folk are

not disquieted, for he seems to be ever riding away into the woods on

adventure. So much gossip could read me."

Igraine's face clouded.

"Did you ask of Bedivere?" she said.

"Oh, yes; a silly, vain fellow, with a red beard and sandy hair."

"And John of Glastonbury?"

"Gwenith could tell me nothing of that man. Dame Martha caught us

talking, and it was then she scolded--the ugly, red-faced old hen. She

said"--and Lilith blushed--"that I was an idle, silly hussy to gad and

gossip after Court gentlemen. Now that wasn't fair, was it, Igraine?"

"No, dear. I should like to have a talk with Dame Martha."

Lilith rose to the notion.

"She would never scold you, Igraine. You look far too stately."

"Simpleton! a scold would spatter Gabriel."

"Well, if I were Gabriel I know what I should do to Dame Martha."

"You quiet-faced thing--why, you are quite a vixen after all!"

"Ah, Igraine, was there ever a woman without a temper?"

"No, dear, and I wouldn't give a button for her either."

Suddenly, as they sat and talked, the beggar woman lifted up her head

to listen, and the children turned from feeding the fish in querulous,

childish wonder. There was something strange on the wind. Igraine and

Lilith heard a gradual sound rising afar off over the city--a noise as

of men shouting, a noise that waxed and waned like the roar of surges

on a beach. It grew--rushed nearer like a storm through trees,--deep,

sonorous, triumphant. The girls sat mute a moment, and looked at each

other in conjecture.

"What can it be?"

"God knows!"

"The heathen?"

"Not that shout."

"Then--Uther."

Igraine caught a deep breath.

"Listen! it comes nearer. Come away, I must see."

Passing through the gardens they came again to the highway skirting

the palace. Men, women, brats, monks, all Christendom, seemed swarming

up from the city, and there was already a great throng in the street.

The breeze of shouting came nearer each moment. Igraine climbed the

pediment of a statue that rose above the balustrading of the gardens;

the ledge gave room to both Lilith and herself. Together they stood and

looked down on the crowd that began to swarm at their feet--soldiers,

nobles, dirty craftsmen, courtezans, fat housewives, churchmen--their

small prides lost in one common curiousness. The street seemed

mosaicked with colour. The broken words and cries of the crowd were

flung up to Igraine like so much foam.

"Gorlois, say you?"

"Noble Gorlois."

"A thousand heathen."

"What--all slain!"

"Where?"

"Under the walls of Anderida."

"Come to my house and I will give you red wine, and play to you on the

cithern."

"Thank the Virgin."

"Great Gorlois."

"If it is true I'll burn twenty candles."

"Give over trampling me."

"A thousand heathen."

"Ho! there--some rogue's thieved my purse."

"They are coming."

"Let's shout for him."

"Great Gorlois."

Up between the stone fronts of the palace and the dwindling houses and

the rolling green of the gardens came a blaze of gold and purple, of

white, green, blue, and scarlet, a gross glare of steel thundered on

with the tramp of men and the cry of many voices. A river of armour

seemed to flow with a brazen magnificence between the innumerable heads

of the crowd. Clarions were braying, banneroles adance. The sun flashed

on helmet and shield, and made a brave blaze on the flanks of the great

serpent of war as it swayed through the thundering street, arrogant,

triumphant, glorious.

Well in the van rode a knight on a great white horse. His armour was

all of gold, his trappings white with gold borders, and stars of gold

scattered thereon. His baldric was set with jasper, his sword and

scabbard marvellous with beryl and sardonyx. A coronet gemmed with one

great ruby circled his casque, and shot red gleams at the archer sun.

Behind him came a veritable grove of spears,--lusty knights, their

saddles weighed down with the spoil of battle, with torque, bracelet,

sword, and axe. Further yet came pikemen, mass on mass, bearing each on

his spear-point a heathen head,--pageant of leers, frowns, scowls of

red wrath, wild eyes, blood, and blood-tangled hair.

The great knight on the white horse rode with a certain splendid

arrogance, and his eyes were full of fire under the arch of his casque.

It was easy to see that the noise and pomp were like wine to him, and

that his pride blazed like a beacon in a wind.

"Gorlois, great Gorlois!" thundered the crowd.

By the palace there was such a press that the white horse came to a

halt, hemmed in by a sea of vociferous faces. Igraine, in a gown of

violet, was leaning from her statue, and looking at Gorlois. Her glance

seemed to magnetise him, for he turned and stared full at the girl as

she stood slightly above him in the glory of her beauty and her pride.

Long looked Gorlois, like a man smitten with a sudden charm. Then he

wrenched the coronet from his casque, and spurring his horse through

the crowd, rode close to the statue whose knees were clasped by

Igraine's arm. It was the statue of Fame crowned by Love with a wreath

of laurels. So, Gorlois, with head bowed, held up the coronet on the

cross of his sword, and gave Igraine his glory.

II

Splendid in arms, magnificent in fortune, Gorlois of Cornwall held high

place in the war lore and romances of the green isle of Britain. Ask

any pikeman or gallowglass whose crest he would have advance in the van

in the tough tussle of a charge home, and he would tell you of Gorlois

or of Uther. Question any merchant as to the most prolific purse in the

kingdom, and he would beam seraphically and talk to you of Gorlois. So

much for the man's reputation.

Physically he was tall, big-chested, lean-limbed, with a square jaw and

eyes that shone ever alert, as though watching a knife in an enemy's

hand. You could read the swift, soaring, masterful spirit of him in

the bleak lines of his handsome face, and the soldierly carriage of his

head. He was quick as a hawk, supple and springy as a willow, keen and

eager in his action as a born fighter should be. When you saw him move,

the lean hard fibre of him seemed as tense and tough as the string of a

five-foot bow. Though he might seem to the eye all impulse, there was a

leopard reason in him that made him the more formidable. He was no mere

fighting machine--rather a man of brain and sinew whose cunning went

far to back his strength.

Meliograunt ruled in Cornwall in those days, Meliograunt who was to

rear young Tristram for the plaguing of Mark, and the love of the fair

Isoult. Gorlois was Meliograunt's nephew, holding many castles, woods,

and wild coastlands towards Lyonesse, lording it also over other lands

in Britain, houses in London and Winchester, and some mountainous

regions in Gore, where Urience held sway. Mordaunt had been his father,

a great knight who had done many brave deeds in his day. His grandsire,

Gravaine, famed for his wisdom, had fought abroad and died in battle.

Gorlois had ancestry enough to breed worship in him, and after

Ambrosius and black Uther he held undoubted precedence of all knights

in Britain.

Unblemished fortune is not always the nurse best suited to the dandling

of a man's mind. It had been so with Gorlois. He was one of those

beings whose life seemed to promise nothing but triumphal processions

and perpetual bays of victory. Selfishness is such a glittering garment

that it needs a great light to reveal its true texture to the wearer.

Flattered, praised, obeyed, bent to, it became as natural for Gorlois

to expect the homage of circumstance as to look for the obedience of

his cook. There was much that was Greek about him in the worst sense, a

certain sensuous brilliancy that aimed at making life a surfeit of rare

sensations, with an infinite indifference for the hearts of others.

Gorlois liked to see life swinging round him like a dance while he

stood pedestalled in the centre, an earthly Jove.

The man had given Igraine his coronet on the cross of his great sword.

That meant much for Gorlois. He was not a gentleman who had need to

trouble his wits about women, for there were many enough ready to ogle

their eyes out in his service. Yet in his keen way he had conceived a

strong liking for the girl's face. A species of sudden admiration had

leapt out on him, and brought him in some wonder to a realisation of

the power of a pair of eyes. Igraine was such a one as would attract

the man. In the first place she was very fair to look upon, a point

of some importance. She was tall, big of body, and built for grace

and strength, things pleasant to Gorlois's humour. Above all she was

proud and implacable, no giggling franion hardly worth the kissing, and

Gorlois had grown past the first blush of experiences of heart. He was

sage enough to know that a woman lightly won is often soon lost, or not

worth the winning. Let a man's soul sweat in the taming of her, and

there is some chance of his making an honest bargain.

Moreover, like many a man of restless, soaring spirit, Gorlois ever

hungered for romance, and the mysterious discomforts and satisfactions

that hedge the way into a woman's bosom. Certain men are never happy

unless they have the firebrand of love making red stir for them in

heart and body. Of some such stuff was Gorlois. He had a soul that

doted on nights spent at a window under the moon. All the thousand

distractions, the infinite yet atomic cares, the logical sweats of

reasoning were particularly pleasant to his fancy. He loved the colour,

the exultation, the heroism, the desperate tenderness of it all.

Battle, effort, ambition, lost half their sting for Gorlois when there

was no woman in the coil.

Igraine's home was soon known to him, thanks to the apt vigilance of

a certain page much in favour with Gorlois for mischief and cunning.

The boy had Igraine's habits to perfection in a week or two. By making

love to the girl who served her, he put himself into the way of getting

almost any tidings he required. Every morning he would slip out early,

meet Igraine's girl, Isolde, under the shadow of the garden-wall,

and, under cover of a kiss, he would inquire what her mistress might

be doing that day, pretending, of course, that his interest on such a

subject merely arose from his desire to have Igraine out of the way,

and her girl free. The lad quite enjoyed the game, Isolde being a

giggling, black-eyed wench, who loved mischief. Of course he ended by

falling in love with the reckless earnestness of a boy, but that kept

him well to business. Betimes he would run home and tell his master

where Igraine would probably be seen that day.

Gorlois's proud face began to come into the girl's life at every turn.

Igraine would see him often from her window as he rode by on his white

horse, looking up, and very eager to greet her. He would pass her in

the aisles of the great basilica in the market, walking in gold and

scarlet, amid silks and cloths from the East, vases, armour, skins

of the tiger and camelopard, flowers, fruit, wine, and all manner of

merchandise. On the river which ran by the end of Radamanth's garden

his barge often swept past with the noise of oars and music, and a

gleam of gold over the hurrying water. In the orchards without the

walls his face would come suddenly upon her through a mist of green,

and she would be conscious of his eyes and the nearness of his stride.

One Sunday morning she found him laving his hands in the labrum beside

her before entering the long narthex porch of the church, and he was

near her all through the service, watching her furtively, noting the

graceful curves of her figure as she knelt, the profusion of her hair,

a thousand little things that are much to a man. When the sacrament

was given, he knelt close beside her, and touched the cup where her

lips had been. Apparently Gorlois was content for a while with the

rich delight of gazing. His bearing was courteous enough, and he never

exposed her to any public rudeness that could warrant her in resenting

his persistent, though distant, homage.

The great baths of Winchester stood in a little hollow near the

southern gate of the city, a white pile of stone set about with quiet

gardens. They had fallen into some decay and disrepute, but still in

the summer-time girls and men of the richer classes went thither to

bathe. On sunny mornings, in the great marble bath of the women, girls

would flash their white limbs, and sport like Naiads in the laughing

water. Afterwards they would have their hair dressed and perfumed, and

then go to sun themselves in the rose-walks like eastern odalisques.

The music of flute and cithern might often be heard in the grass-grown

peristyles. The library attached to the place had once boasted many

scrolls and tomes, but it had long ago been pillaged by the monks of

the great abbey.

Lilith had taken Igraine there more than once. One morning Igraine had

bathed, tied her hair, and had passed out into the garden alone. The

place was of some size, boasting twenty acres or more, full of winding

paths, grass glades, and knolls of bushy shrubs, where one might lose

one's self as soon as think. Children often played hide-and-seek there,

and idling up some green walk you might catch a giggling girl, with

hair flying, bursting out of some thicket with a lad in full chase. Or

in some shady lawn you might come upon a company of children dancing as

solemnly as little elves to the sound of a pipe.

Nooks and grass walks were almost deserted at this hour, the gardens

being most favoured towards evening, when the day was marked by a

deepening discretion. Igraine had no purpose in the place. She knew

that Lilith was somewhere within its bounds. She also knew that Lilith

had no particular need of her that morning, and as the day was hot and

slothful, Igraine's only ambition was to waste her time as pleasantly

as possible till noon.

Turning round a holly hedge that hid a statue of Cupid, she came

full upon a woman seated on the stone bench that ringed the statue's

pedestal. The woman wore a light blue tunic, and a purple gown that ran

all along the seat in curling masses. She was combing her fair hair

as though she had only lately come from the bath. Her white glimmering

arms were bare to the elbow, and she was humming a song to the sway of

her hair, while many rings laughed on her slim white fingers. She had

not heard Igraine's step upon the grass, but saw suddenly her shadow

stealing along in the sun. Lifting her face, she stared, knew on the

instant, and went red and grey by turns. Her comb halted, tangled in a

strand of hair, and she was very quiet, and big about the eyes. Igraine

remembered well enough where she had seen that would-be innocent stare,

and that loose little mouth that seemed to bud for lawless kisses.

Morgan, with her face as white as her bosom, drew the comb from

her hair, and flourished it uneasily betwixt her fingers. She was

frightened as a mouse at the tall girl standing big and imperious so

near, and her eyes were furtive for chance of flight. Igraine in her

heart was in no less quandary than was dead Madan's wife. She could

prove nothing against the woman, for Pelleas was lost and away, and

even the man's name might be a myth likely to involve further mystery.

She had as much to fear too from Morgan's tongue, as Morgan had from

her knowledge of that night in the island manor.

Morgan, too flurried for sudden measures, sat biting her lips, while

her blue eyes were fixed on Igraine with a restless caution. Neither

woman said a word for fully a minute, but eyed each other like a couple

of cats, each waiting for the other to move. The shrubs around were so

still that you might imagine they were listening, while Cupid, poised

on one foot, drew his bow very much at a venture.

"Good-morning, holy sister."

Igraine said never a word.

"I am glad to see you so improved in dress, that olive-green gown looks

so well on you."

Still no retort.

"By the saints, sister, you are very silent. I hope you were not kept

long on that island?"

Igraine arched her eyebrows and gave the girl a stare. She knew what

a coward Morgan was, and guessed she was in a holy panic, despite her

cool impudence and seeming ease of mind. Woman-like, she conceived a

sudden strong desire to have Morgan whimpering and grovelling at her

feet, for there is some satisfaction in terrorising an enemy, even if

one can do no more.

"I presume, madame," she said, "you thought me safely packed away in

that island, and likely to die of hunger, or be taken by heathen."

Morgan forced a smile, and began to bind her hair for the sake of

having something to do in the full glare of Igraine's great eyes.

"You did not think I could swim."

"Madame, I could think anything of you. Nuns are so clever."

"After all, I am not a nun."

"Of course not. You could not be bothered with vows in summer-time. I

turned nun myself once for a month, it being convenient."

Igraine began to fret and to lose patience.

"You are over venturesome, madame," she said, "in coming to Winchester."

"So!"

"I believe they hang folk here at times; they might even break your

slim white neck."

Morgan's lips twitched, but she did not blench from the argument.

"You speak of hanging," she said, "and the inference is rather

peculiar. Listen a moment, my good convent saint: your knight on the

black horse would most certainly have needed the rope, if my man had

not mended vengeance with that poniard."

"Pelleas and the gallows! You're a fool!"

Morgan smiled back at her very prettily.

"After all, your man did first murder," she said.

"On a traitor cur in Andredswold!"

"Madame, my husband."

The woman's contention was not so illogical when Igraine came to

consider it in a less personal light. Morgan may have loved the man

Madan for all she knew, and she could feel for her in such a matter.

She looked at her with less scorn for the moment, and less injustice of

thought.

"Perhaps you have grieved much," she said.

Morgan gave a blank stare.

"Grieved?"

"You loved your husband?"

"I did, while he lived."

"And no longer?"

"What is the use of wasting one's youth on a corpse?"

Igraine retracted her late sympathy, and returned to enmity. Morgan had

risen, and was ruffling herself like a swan in her part of the great

lady, and gathering her purple gown round her slim figure with infinite

affectation.

"I cannot see that we have cause to quarrel further," she suggested.

"Indeed!"

"Seemingly we are quits, good Sister Morality. I have lost my man, you

yours."

"You are very logical," said Igraine.

"Why should we women grieve?"

"Why indeed?"

"There are many more men in the world."

"Madame, I do not understand you."

Morgan gave a malicious little laugh that ended in a sneer. She

touched her hair with her jewelled fingers, blew a kiss to Cupid,

and again laughed in her sly mischief-making way. In a moment words

were out of her lips that set Igraine's face ablaze, her heart at a

canter, and mulled all further parley. Morgan saw trouble, dodged,

and ran round the statue. Igraine was too quick for her, and winding

her fingers into the woman's hair, gave her a cuff that would have

set a helmet ringing. Morgan tripped and fell, dragging Igraine with

her, and for a moment there was a struggle, green and purple mixed.

Igraine, the heavier and stronger, came aloft on the other soon. Then a

knife flashed out. Morgan got two quick strokes in, one on the girl's

shoulder, a second in her left forearm. Igraine lost her grip, and

fell aside in a stagger of surprise and pain, while Morgan, taking her

chance, squirmed away, slipped up, and ran like a rabbit. She was out

of sight and sound before Igraine had got back her reason.

Here was a pretty business. The girl's sleeve was already red and

soaked, and the slit cloth showed a long red streak in the plump white

of her flesh. Blood was welling up, and dripping fast to the grass at

her feet. Despite the smart of her wounds and her temper, she saw it

would be mere folly to chase Morgan. Following instinct, she ran for

home, holding her right hand pressed over the gash in her shoulder.

In the main avenue who should she meet but Gorlois, carried in a

litter, and looking out lazily from behind half-drawn curtains. His

quick eyes caught sight of Igraine as she passed. He saw the blood and

the girl's white face, and he was out of the litter like a stag from

cover, and at her side, with spirited concern. Igraine was white and

half dazed, her green gown soaked and stained. Her eyes trembled up at

Gorlois as she showed him her gashed arm, with a smile and a little

whimper that made him storm.

"Who did this?"

He had stripped his cloak off, and was tearing it into strips, while

his jaw stiffened.

"An old foe of mine."

"Describe him."

"A woman, my lord."

"The damned vixen. Her dress?"

"Blue tunic, and gown of purple."

Gorlois turned to certain servants who stood round gaping at the girl

in her blood-stained dress, and their lord tearing his cloak into

bandages with characteristic furor.

"Search the gardens--a woman in blue and purple; have her caught. By my

sword, I'll hang her."

He rent Igraine's sleeve to the shoulder, and wound the strips of his

cloak about her arm with a strength that made her wince.

"Pardon," he said in his quick, fierce way; "this will serve a season;

stern heart, good surgeon."

Igraine smiled, and made light of it, while he knotted the bandage.

Some of his men had scattered among the shrubs and into the dark alleys

of the place, for Igraine could hear them trampling and calling to each

other. While she listened, and before she could hinder him, Gorlois had

lifted her as though she had been but a sheaf of corn, and laid her in

the litter. He drew the curtains. The bearers were at the poles, and

setting off at a good stride they were soon in the town.

By the time they reached Radamanth's doorway Igraine, despite her

spirit, was faint from loss of blood, and all atremble. Gorlois,

tersely imperious, lifted her up as she lay half dazed and stupid,

carried her in his arms into the house, and taking guidance from a

white-faced maid, bore Igraine above to her chamber, and laid her on

her bed. Then he kissed her hand, and leaving her to the women, hurried

off to send skilled succour.

III

It was not long before Gildas, the court physician, a dear old

scoundrel with a white beard and a portentous face, came down in state

to attend on Igraine. He was an old gentleman of most solemn soul. His

dignity was so tremendous a thing, that you might have imagined him a

solitary Atlas holding the whole world's health upon his shoulders.

He soon dabbled his fingers in Igraine's wounds that morning, dropped

in oil, and balmed them with myrrh and unguents under a dressing of

clean cloth. He frowned all the time, as was his custom in the sick

chamber, as though wisdom lay heavy on his soul, or at least as though

he wished folk to think so. The only time you saw Gildas smile was when

you payed him a fee or complimented him upon his knowledge. Tickle

his pocket or his vanity, and he beamed on you. That morning he told

Radamanth that his niece's wounds were serious, but that he trusted

that they would heal innocently, treated as they had been by credited

skill. Gildas always pulled a long face over a patient's possibilities;

such discretion kept him from pitfalls, and enabled him to claim all

the credit when matters turned out happily.

The streaks of scarlet in the white waste of skin soon died cleanly

into mere bands of pink, and Igraine had little trouble from her

wounds, thanks to the great Gildas. In fact, she was in bed but three

days, while Lilith played nurse, chatted and sang to her, or leant at

the open window to tell her of those who passed in the street. Master

Gildas came and went morning and evening with the prodigious regularity

of the sun. The girls aped him behind his back, and Igraine, with some

ingratitude to science, made Lilith empty the ruby-coloured physic

out of the window. It happened to spatter a lean booby of a man as

he passed, who, looking up, flattered himself that Lilith must have

sprinkled him with scented water by way of showing her affection. So

much for Gildas's rose-water and flowers of dill.

The man of physic marched each day like a god into Gorlois's house to

tell how the Lady Igraine fared at his hands. Such patronage was worth

much to Gildas, and knowing how the wind blew, he puffed religiously

upon the new-kindled fire. The girl's glamour had caught up Gorlois in

a golden net. He had loved to look upon her and to dream, but now the

perfume of her hair, the warm softness of her body, the very odour of

her shed and scarlet blood were memories in him that would not fade.

One evening a posy of flowers came tumbling in at Igraine's window.

Lilith looked out, and saw Gorlois.

"For the Lady Igraine," were his words.

Lilith smiled down, and ventured to tell him that Igraine was much

beholden to his courtesy and succour, and would thank him with her own

lips when well of her wounds. She took the flowers to Igraine, who was

listening in bed in the twilight.

"Shall I throw a flower back?" asked the girl.

"It would be courteous."

Lilith did so. The bloom struck Gorlois on the mouth like a blown kiss.

The man put the thing in his bosom with a great smile, and went home to

spend some hours like a star-gazer in his garden, while his musicians

tuned their strings behind the bushes. At such a season Gorlois loved

sound and colour. The voices, sweetly melancholic, thrilled up into the

night--

"Her head is of brighter gold than the broom-flower,

Her breast like foam under her green tunic;

Like a summer sky at night are her glances;

Her fingers are as wood anemones in a daze of dew;

Of her lips,--who shall tell!

The gates of a sunset

Where love dies.

Her limbs are like May-blossoms

Bedded on a green couch:

The night sighs for her,

And for the touch of her hand."

Of course Morgan had escaped capture. Gorlois's men had hunted an hour

or more, and had caught nothing, not even a glimpse of the purple

gown for which they searched. Radamanth, who had had the affair from

Gorlois's own lips, came and told Igraine, and began to ask her who

this woman foe of hers was. Igraine put him off with a fable. She had

no thought of letting him have knowledge of her love for Pelleas, and

she was glad in measure that Morgan had escaped capture, and so left

her secret in oblivion. The woman might have proved troublesome if

brought to bay, for she had as much right to claim the truth as had

Igraine. Better let a snake go than take it by the tail.

In a week or so there was nothing left to mark the incident save the

red lines in Igraine's white skin. Flowers and fruit came daily in from

Gorlois, and every evening there was music under the window, till she

began to consider these perpetual courtesies. She was woman enough to

know whither they all tended. As for Radamanth, he was more kind to

her than ever, seeing how the wind might blow favours into his ready

lap. Gorlois was a great and noble gentleman, and the goldsmith had an

intense respect for the nobility.

The very first day that Igraine walked abroad again after her

seclusion, she fell in straight with Gorlois. By Gildas's advice, she

had gone, presumably for her health's sake, to the baths with Lilith;

and Gorlois, warned by the leech himself, followed alone, and overtook

them near the porch. He was very gracious, very sympathetic, very

splendid. He begged a meeting with Igraine after she had bathed, and

since the girl had something in her heart that made her wish to speak

with him, she consented, and left him in the laconicum, proposing to

meet him in the rose-walk an hour later. Truth to tell, she intended

questioning him as to Pelleas, whether Gorlois had heard of a knight so

named; and also as to Uther, whether he had yet been heard of in any

region of Britain. She knew Gorlois would take her consent as favour.

Still, she imagined she could venture a little for her heart's sake

without much prick of conscience.

An hour later, true to her word, she went alone into the rose-walk,

a grassy pathway banked with yews, and hemmed with a rich tangle of

red blooms. Gorlois was there waiting as for a tryst. He was full of

smiles and staunch glances as he led her to a seat that was set back in

an alcove, carved from the dense green of the yews, where they might

talk at leisure, and out of sight. Igraine's hair lay loosened over her

shoulders to dry in the sun. It had been perfumed, and the scent of it

swept over Gorlois like a violet mist. He sat watching her for a while

in silence, as she plied her comb with the sun-shaken masses pouring

over her face like ruddy smoke.

"Lady Igraine," he said at length.

The girl's eyes glimmered at him slantwise from behind her hair.

"I knew your father, Malgo, before his death."

Igraine merely nodded.

"I am claiming to be the friend of his daughter, seeing that I have

learnt the very colour of her several girdles, the number and pattern

of her gowns since I rode into Winchester."

The venture in flattery was perhaps more suggestive than Igraine could

have wished.

"You must waste much time, my lord."

"But little."

"I am sorry I have so poor a wardrobe, that you have fathomed the

whole of it in less than a month. To tell the truth, when I came into

Winchester, I had only one gown, and that rather ragged."

"They did not give you green and gold at Avangel?"

"No, the good women wore grey to typify the colour of their souls."

Gorlois laughed in his keen quiet fashion. The girl's eyes were

wonderfully bright and subtle, and he had never seen such a splendour

of hair. He longed to finger it, to let it run through his fingers like

amber wine. Leaning one elbow on the stone back of the seat, and his

head on his palm, he watched the silver comb rippling at its work, with

a kind of dreamy complacency.

The girl's voice broke out suddenly upon him.

"My lord?"

Gorlois attended.

"You know many of the knights and gentlemen famed for arms in Britain?"

"I may so boast myself."

"I was once befriended, a piece of passing courtesy, yet I have always

been curious to learn the character and estate of the man who did me

this service. Have you heard of a knight named Pelleas?"

Gorlois fingered his sharp-peaked black beard, and looked blankly

irresponsive.

"I have never known such a knight," he said.

"Strange."

"Never so. We men of the woods and moors often ride under false

colours, sometimes to try our friends on the sly, sometimes to escape

cognisance. The man who befriended you may have been Pelleas in your

company."

Igraine cut in with a laugh.

"And Ambrosius at home," she said; "even Princes love masquerading in

strange arms. Meadow-flower that I am, I have never seen the stately

folk of the court--Ambrosius or Uther. I have heard Uther is an ugly

man."

"If strength makes a man ugly, Uther may claim ugliness."

"Well?"

"Picture a dark man with black hair, eyes packed away under heavy

brows, a straight mouth, and a great clean-shaven jaw that looks sullen

as death."

"Not beautiful in words."

Gorlois stretched his shoulders, and half yawned behind his hand.

"Uther is a man with a conscience like a north wind," he said; "always

lashing him into tremendous effort for the sake of duty. He has the

head and neck of a lion, the grip of a bear. You have never known Uther

till you have seen him in battle. Then he is like a mountain thundering

down against a sea, a black flood plunging through a pine forest. A

quaint, gentle, devilish, God-ridden madman; I can paint him no other

way."

Igraine laughed softly to herself.

"A man worth seeing," she said.

"I should judge so."

"Tell me, is it true that Uther has gone into the wilds, and been seen

of no man many days?"

"Uther left Winchester more than two months ago, and no word of him has

come to Ambrosius."

"Curious."

"Madame, nothing is curious in Uther. If I were to hear some day that

he had ridden down to Hades to fight a pitched battle with Satan, I

should say, 'Poor Satan, I warrant he has a sore head.'"

"Indeed!" quoth Igraine.

She shook her hair, tilted her chin, and looked at Gorlois out of the

corners of her eyes. She guessed her power, was young, and a woman. It

tempted her to read this creature called "man" in his various forms and

phases, and hold his heart in the hollow of her hand. Her interest in

Gorlois was no discourtesy to her love for Pelleas. She had seen few

men in her time; they seemed strange beings, strong yet weak, wise yet

very foolish, sometimes heroic, yet utter children.

Gorlois, who had the sun in his eyes, beheld her as in an unusual

mist. He was warming to life, for his brain seemed full of the sound

of harping, and his blood blithe with summer. Stretching out a hand he

touched Igraine's hair as it poured over her shoulders, for the red

gold threads seemed magnetic to his fingers, and the glimmer of her

eyes made his tough flesh creep.

"You have wonderful hair," he said.

"I learnt that long ago," drawing the strand away.

"The dawn of knowledge."

"It reaches not so very far from my feet."

Igraine hung out a flag, as it were, to try the man. She knew the look

of Pelleas's eyes, and she wanted Gorlois for comparison. Standing

up, she shook the glistening shroud about her while it seemed to drop

perfumes and to spark out passion. The man's malady showed plainly

enough on his face, but his eyes did not please Igraine. There was too

much selfishness, not enough abasement. She knew Pelleas would have

looked at her as though she was a saint in a church, and he but a lad

from the brown ploughland. Igraine thought that she loved mute devotion

far better than the bold impatient hunger on Gorlois's face.

The man leant back and tilted his beard at her, while his eyes were

half shut for the sun.

"I have heard it told that women are ambitious. Is it truth?"

Igraine, all gravity again, with her tentative mischief banished,

looked at her knees, and said she could not tell. Gorlois waxed subtle.

"Are you ambitious, Igraine?"

"Ambitious, my lord?"

"Have you never wished to stand out like a bright peak above the world?"

"No."

"Or to have the glory of your beauty filling the gate of fame like a

scarlet sky?"

Igraine forced a titter.

"I suppose you are a poet, sir."

"Only a fool, madame."

"Ah!"

"All poets are fools."

"How do you contrive that?"

"Because they are for ever praising women."

"And yet you are a poet, my lord!"

"How could I be else, madame, since I am a man?"

Gorlois took a deep breath, and smiled at the dark yews, sombre and

mysterious behind their belt of glowing roses. Igraine was watching his

face in some uneasiness. It gave the profile of a strong, stark man,

whose every feature spelt alert daring and great hardihood of mind.

There was a keen, half-cruel look about the tight lips and impatient

eyes. She was contrasting him with Pelleas in her heart, and the dark,

brooding face of lion-like mould that so haunted her left little glory

for Gorlois's lighter, leaner countenance.

They were both strong men, but she guessed instinctively which was the

stronger.

Gorlois turned suavely again, with his courage strung like a steel bow.

"I am a queer fellow," he said.

Igraine began to bind her hair.

"If I ever loved a woman--"

"Well, my lord?"

"She could be ambitious to her heart's content. The more her pride

flamed, the better I should like her."

Igraine frowned.

"She would be intolerable."

Gorlois arched his eyebrows, and covered his convictions with a laugh.

"Shall I tell how I should win her?"

"It would be a quaint tale."

"In the beginning, I should half-kill any man who braved it out that

she was not the comeliest woman in Britain."

"Somewhat harsh, my lord, but emphatic."

"I should make her the envy of every lady, dame, and damoselle in the

land."

"Not wise."

"Like a golden Helen should she rise in the east; blood should flow

about her feet like water; I would tear down kingdoms to pile her up a

throne. Such should be my wooing."

Igraine looked at her lap, and said never a word for a minute or more.

All these heroics were rather hollow to her ear, though she did not

doubt the man's sincerity towards himself, and his earnest mind to

please her. Then she asked Gorlois a very simple question.

"Imagine, my lord, that the woman loved some other man?"

Gorlois's answer came swift off his tongue.

"I should meet him in open field, sword to sword, and shield to shield,

and kill him."

Igraine started suddenly, grave and grey as any beadswoman. She did not

think Pelleas would have taught any such doctrine.

"To you, that is love?" she asked.

"What else!"

Igraine thrust her silver bodkin into her hair with some vigour; there

was no mirth or patience in her.

"I name it murder."

"Madame!"

"Stark, selfish murder."

Gorlois spread his hands and laughed.

"What is love?" he asked.

"Should I know!"

"Stark selfishness,--nothing more."

Igraine thought of Pelleas, and the way he had left her for knowledge

of her imagined vows. Something in her heart told her that that was

love indeed that had clasped thorns in the struggle to embrace truth.

Therewith she wished Gorlois a very formal good-morning, refused his

escort, and went straight home with the clear conviction that she

had learnt something to her credit. Her talk with Gorlois had set a

brighter halo about Pelleas's head.

Gorlois of Cornwall was nothing if not subtle. A selfish man of

diplomatic mind may reach the very zenith of unselfishness to work his

ends. Gorlois had so studied the expediencies and discretions of his

purpose that even his love, headstrong though it may have been, was

for the time being harnessed to the chariot of circumspection, whence

intellect drove with steady hand. He had discovered for himself that

Igraine was of sterner, prouder stuff than the general mob of women,

and that he could not count much upon her vanity. She was to be won

by honour, stark, unflinching honour, and by such alone, and Gorlois,

thanks to the no mean wit that was in him, had judged that to his

credit. He set about winning her at first with a consistency that was

admirable, and a wisdom that would have honoured Nestor.

Naturally enough, Radamanth was amazed. Gorlois, one of the first

men in Britain, sitting in a goldsmith's parlour and soliciting his

patronage and countenance with a modest manliness! Radamanth stroked

his beard, strove to appear at ease under so intense an obligation,

struggled to wed servility with a new-found sense of importance. The

whole business was most astonishing; not that Gorlois should love the

daughter of Malgo of the Redlands, but that he should come frankly to

a Winchester merchant and make such a Minos of him. Radamanth beamed,

stuttered, excused himself, crept, condescended, in one breath. When

Gorlois had gone, the good man sat down to think in a sweat of wonder.

Probably he would find himself feasting with the king before long, and

certainly it might prove excellent for trade.

After a cup of wine and a biscuit to restore his faculties, he sent for

Igraine, who was in the garden, and prepared to parade his news with a

most benevolent pleasure. He took a most solemn and serious mood, bowed

her to a chair in magnificent fashion, and began in style.

"My dear niece, I have great honour to lay before you."

Igraine, who had heard nothing of Gorlois's visit, merely waited for

Radamanth to unfold, with a mild and silent curiosity. The old man was

big and benignant with the news he had, and when he began to speak he

rolled his words with the sonorous satisfaction of a poet reading his

verses to patrons in some Roman peristyle.

"Lady Igraine," he said, "honour is pleasant to an old man, and

reverence welcome as savoury pottage. Yet, honour to those he loves is

even sweeter to him than honour to himself. In honouring a kinswoman of

mine, a certain noble gentleman has poured oil of delicious flattery on

my grey head, and treated me to such an exhibition of grace, frankness,

and courtesy, that my heart still warms to him. Perhaps, my dear niece,

you can guess to whom I refer."

Igraine thrilled to a sudden thought--a thought of Pelleas. "I cannot

tell," she said.

Radamanth could have winked, only in his present exalted frame of

mind he remembered that such an expression was neither dignified nor

courtly. If he were to become the associate of noble folk, it behoved

him to raise up new ideals, and so he contented himself with a most

ingenuous smile.

"Hear, then," he said, "that my noble visitor was the Count Gorlois."

"Gorlois!"

"Exactly."

Radamanth believed Igraine wholly overwhelmed. He waxed more and more

patriarchal, till his very beard seemed to grow in dignity.

"Believe me, a most honourable man. Gentlemen of his position might

well fancy other methods--well, never mind that. Count Gorlois came to

me, like a man, to frankly crave my sanction for a betrothal."

Igraine stared, admired Gorlois's excellent plan for netting Faith,

Hope, and Charity at one swoop, but said nothing. Radamanth prosed on.

"Count Gorlois besought me in most courtly and flattering fashion to

countenance him in his claims. He would have everything done in the

light, he said, in honourable, manly, and open fashion--no secret

loitering after dark, or sly kisses under hedges. Mark the gentleman,

dear niece."

The goldsmith idled over the words as though they were fat morsels

of flattery, and Igraine had never seen him look so eminently happy

before. She understood quite well that Gorlois's move had inspired him

into complete and glowing partisanship, and that she was to have those

sage words of advice that young folk love so much. Radamanth climbed

down, meanwhile, to material things, and began to knock off Gorlois's

possessions in practical fashion on his fingers.

"A grand match," he said. "There are the castles in Cornwall--Terabil

and Tintagel; the lands in Gore and elsewhere; the palace in London;

and the great house here by the river. In Logria he has lands, I have

heard,--miles of fat pastures, woods, and many manors, lying towards

the great oaks of Brederwode. The man is as rich as any in Britain, and

if death took Ambrosius or Uther--"

Igraine cut in upon his verbosity.

"What did you tell him, uncle?"

Radamanth stared at her, with his fingers still figuring.

"Tell him, child?"

"Yes."

"What a thing to ask. Of course I promised to further his cause with

you in every way possible. I said we should soon need the priest."

Igraine groaned in spirit.

"It is all useless," she said.

"What!"

"I have no scrap of love for this man."

Now Radamanth had never heard a word of Pelleas, for Igraine had

cautioned Lilith never to speak to her father on the matter. Like many

old people who have spent their lives in getting and possessing, he

had lost that subtle something that men call "soul." Sentiment to him

was a foolish and troublesome thing when it interfered with material

advantage or profit, or barred out Mammon, with its rod twined with red

roses. Consequently he was taken aback by Igraine's cool reception of

so momentous a blessing. He sat bolt upright in his chair and stared at

her.

"My dear niece."

There was such chagrin in his voice that Igraine, remembering his many

kindnesses, hung her head and felt unhappy.

"Do not be angry," she said; "I do not wish you to speak of this more."

"But, my dear child, the honour, the fame, the noise of it!"

Igraine almost smiled at his palpable dismay, for she knew that her

words must have flustered him not a little. Radamanth mopped his bald

head, for the season was sultry.

"I am astounded," he said.

"Uncle!"

"Let me reason with you."

"Love is not reason."

"No, niece, it is prejudice. Yet I assure you Gorlois is a most noble

soul."

"If he were a seraph, uncle, I could not love him."

"You women are all fancy. Why, you have hardly seen the colour of him.

Come, now!"

"I do not need to see more of Gorlois."

"Why, bless my soul, my wife never loved me till we had been married a

month, and she had learnt my fibre."

Igraine thought a moment. Then she asked Radamanth a question.

"Do you love Lilith?"

"Why, girl, what a question."

"Would you marry her to a man she did not love or trust, simply because

it brought gold?"

Radamanth saw himself rounded in the argument like a rat in a corner.

He sat stroking his beard, and striving to look pleased.

"Think over it, my dear," he said presently.

"There is no need."

"Gorlois will woo you like a hero."

"Let him. He will accomplish nothing."

"It would be a grand match."

Igraine jumped up, kissed him to show she bore no ill will, and ran

away much troubled to find Lilith in the garden. She flung herself down

beside the girl in the bower of laurels, and told her all that passed

that morning in Radamanth's parlour. Lilith listened with her brown

eyes deep with thought, and a quiet wonder. When Igraine had finished,

Lilith took both her hands in hers, and, kneeling before her, looked up

into her face.

"What will you do, Igraine?"

"Need you ask, dear?"

"Forgive me."

"Ah!"

"You love Pelleas."

Igraine put her arms round Lilith's neck, and kissed her.

IV

Radamanth's words to the girl proved very true before many days

had gone; his prophetic belief in Gorlois's mood found abundant

justification in the event. Gorlois had the warm imagination of his

race, an imagination that found extravagance and rich taste ready

ministers to work his purpose. Igraine, met by all manner of devices

on all possible occasions, began to realise the cares of those whom a

purblind world insists on smothering with limitless favours.

Flowers were poured in upon her, worked into posies, garlands, shields,

harps, crosses,--all bearing with them some mute plea for mercy. It

might have been perpetual May-day in Radamanth's house, so flowered

and scented was it. Flowers were followed by things more tangible,

a pearl-set cithern, a great white hound, a gold girdle, a pair of

doves in a cage of silver wire, a necklet of rich stones gotten from

some Byzant mart. Gorlois seemed ready to send her all the finery in

Winchester despite her messages and her words to him,--"My lord, I can

suffer none of these things from you." Servants and slaves came down to

Radamanth's house as though they had been sent from Sheba, while one of

Radamanth's men went back from Igraine like an echo, bearing back the

unaccepted baubles. It was a patient game, and rather foolish.

These were but small flutters in Gorlois's sweep for the sun. Had not

Igraine been stabbed in the public gardens! Gorlois put the incident

to use. He formed a bodyguard of certain of the noble youths who were

under his patronage, and warned Igraine with all reverence that he

had acted for her sanctity, and that a dozen gentlemen would follow

near her when she walked abroad, or went to bath or church. Even her

humblest stroll in the street began to partake of the nature of a

triumphal progress. Children would gather to her in the gardens and

throw flowers and laurel branches at her feet, or she would be followed

by music and some sweet love ditty to the harp. A hundred quaint

flatterers seemed to dog her from door to door, till she hardly dared

to stir out of Radamanth's garden.

Naturally enough, her name was soon the one name in Winchester. The

good folk with their Celtic beauty-loving souls spoke of her with

quaint extravagance; her skin was like the apple-bloom in spring, and

her lips like rich red May; her feet moved soft and swift as sunlight

through swaying branches; her hair was a cloud of gold plucked from

the sky at dawn. She was gaped at and pointed at in the street like a

prodigy. When she went into church on Sunday half the folk turned to

stare at her, and a clear circle was left about her where she sat in

the nave. She was for the season the city's cynosure, its poem, its

gossip. Aphrodite might have stepped out of mythology and taken lodging

at Radamanth's, to judge by the curiosity displayed by the people,

and doubtless many a comfortable piece of business came to Radamanth

thereby.

Many women would have gloried for self's sake in such a pageant of

flattery. It was not so with Igraine. She was a woman who mingled much

warmth of heart with strength of will, and fair measure of innate

wisdom; her feelings were too staunch and vivid to be swayed or

weakened by any fresh circumstance, however strange and magnificent it

might appear. Her love, once forged, could bend to no new craft. Her

thoughts were all for Pelleas, and any glory her beauty received she

kept it in her heart for him. Igraine was so eternally in love that

even worldly prides seemed dead in her, and she had not vanity enough

to be tempted by Gorlois's great homage.

The whole business troubled her not a little. There was a certain

mockery in it that hurt her heart. It was as if she had panted in

thirst for water, and some rude hand from heaven had thrown down

gold. Gorlois had her in measure at his mercy. He seemed to take all

her rebuffs with a sublime stoicism, and she had no one to whom she

could appeal. She wished to bide in Winchester, for the city seemed to

promise her the best chance of seeing Pelleas or Uther, and of learning

if these twain were one.

One night there was music under her window. Flute, harp, and cithern

with deep voices were pleading for Gorlois under the stars. Igraine

listened, lying quiet, and thinking only of Pelleas.

Take then my heart,

My soul, my shield, my sword,--

sang the voices under the window. Igraine kissed the gold cross that

hung at her bosom, and longed till her heart seemed fit to break for

yearning. If only the song had come from Pelleas, how fair it would

have sounded in the night. As it was, the whole business made her feel

desperately weary.

Gorlois had begun by holding somewhat aloof. It was part of his purpose

to work behind a glowing and fantastic screen, serving Igraine more at

a distance, in a spirit of melancholy that should web him round with a

mystery that was more splendid than truth. He bore Igraine's passive

antagonism for a while with a spirit of enforced fortitude, going

cheerfully by the old and somewhat foolish saying that a woman's looks

lie against her heart, and that persistence wins entry in the end. To

do credit to Gorlois's self-favour, he never considered the ultimate

shipwreck of his enterprise as possible. He had fame, gold, bodily

favour on his side, and what woman, he thought, could gainsay such a

chorus. There are some men who never fail in anticipating success, and

Gorlois possessed that quality of mind.

As the days went by, and the girl was still stone to him, he began

to chafe and to look for stauncher measures. The gay gentlemen who

served him suggested various expedients; one, a more passionate appeal;

another, sly bribery of servants; a third, who was young in years,

hinted at humble despair that might evoke pity. Gorlois laughed at them

all, and swore he would win the girl, hook or by crook, in a month or

less, or lose all the honour his sword had won. He was tired of mere

courtesies that ran contrary to his more stormy spirit. He had a liking

for insolent daring, for a snatch at love as at an enemy's banner in

the full swing of a gallop on some bloody field. Mere mild homage was

all very well for a season. Gorlois loved mastery, and believed there

was no wine like success.

About this time a horde of heathen ships came from the east, sailed

past Vectis, and began to pour their wild men into the country 'twixt

Winchester and the sea. Hamlets and manors were burnt, peasant folk

driven to the woods, the crops fired, the cattle slain. The noise of it

came into Winchester with a rabble of frightened fugitives who had fled

to the city for refuge. Ambrosius the king was in Caerleon, and Uther

errant, so that the chance fell to Gorlois of driving the heathen into

the sea.

No man could have been more heartily glad of this innovation. Igraine

should see him swoop like a hawk in his strength; she should hear how

he led men, and how his sword drank blood. In making war on the heathen

he would boast himself before her eyes, and show her the merit of

manhood, and the glory of a strong arm. Winchester bustled like a camp.

Troops poured in from Sarum, and the sound of war went merrily through

the streets. Folk boasted how Gorlois would harry the heathen. He rode

out one night with picked men at his back, and held straight for the

coast, while Eldol of Gloucester, a veteran knight, marched southward

before dawn with five thousand footmen. It was Gorlois's plan to cut

the heathen off from their ships, and crush them between his knights

and the spearmen led by Eldol.

It was such a venture as Gorlois loved,--keen, shrill, and full of

hazards. Riding straight over hill and dale they saw the glimmer of

waves as the sun rose, and knew they had touched the sea. Gorlois's

scouts had located the main mass of the Jutes camped in a valley about

a nunnery they had taken, and the British knights coming up through

the woods saw smoke in the valley and men moving like ants about the

reeking ruin of the holy house. Looking north they saw a beacon burning

on a hill,--Eldol's signal that he had closed the woods, north, east,

and west, with his footmen, and that he waited only for Gorlois to

sweep up and drive the heathen on to the hidden spears.

Never was there a finer light in Gorlois's eyes than at such a season.

He loved the dance and noise of steel, the plunging hustle of horses at

the gallop, the grand rage of the shout that curled like the foam on an

ocean billow. His courage sang with the wind as his knights rode down

over the green slopes in a great half-moon of steel, a moving barrier

that rolled the savage folk northwards, and rent them like a harrow of

iron. By the blackened walls of the nunnery Gorlois caught sight of

a line of mutilated bodies tied to posts,--dead nuns, stripped, and

still bleeding. The sight roused the wolf in him. "Kill! kill!" were

his words as they rode in upon the skin-clad horde. It was savage work,

bloody and merciless. Eldol's men closed in on every quarter, and the

heathen were cut down like corn in summer.

Very few went back to their ships that day. Scores lay dead with their

fair hair drabbled in the blood about the ruins, and on the quiet

slopes of the dale. As they had measured out violence to the peasant

folk and women, so it was meted to them in turn,--vengeance, piled up,

great measure, running over with blood. Some sixty maimed men were

taken alive, but mere death was too mild for Gorlois when he remembered

the slain nuns. He had certain of the captured burnt alive, others

hacked limb from limb, the rest crucified near the river for the birds

to feed upon. Then he buried the nuns, and made a great entry into

Winchester, taking care to ride past Igraine's window with his white

horse bloody to the saddle, and his armour splashed as he had come

from the field. She should see his manhood, if she would not have his

presents.

This single slaughter, however, did not end matters on the southern

shores. Bands of Saxons were forraying from Kent, where they had

established themselves, and Gorlois rode out again and again to crush

and kill. There would be battles in the woods, bloody tussles in the

deep shadows of Andredswold, wild flights over moor and waste, triumph

cries at sunset. Three times Gorlois rode out at the head of his

knights from Winchester; three times he came back victorious, hacked

and war-stained, thundered in by the people, past Radamanth's house to

the church in the market-square. Igraine sat at her window and watched

him go by, lowering his spear to her with all his proud love ablaze on

his face. Had he not driven the barbarians into the very heel of Kent,

and left many a tall man from over the seas rotting in sun and rain?

It was customary year by year in Winchester to hold a water pageant

on the river, depicting legendary and historic things that had passed

within the shores of Britain. August was the pageant month, and in

this particular year the display was made more elaborate in order

to celebrate the rout of the heathen by Gorlois, and to please the

common folk who had made him their idol. The pageant was of no little

splendour. Great galleys, fittingly decorated, were rowed down the

narrow stream amid a horde of smaller craft, each great barge bearing

figures famed in British legend lore. The first barge portrayed Brute

the Trojan voyaging for Britain; others, Locrine's death by the river

Severn, Rudhudibras, mythical founder of Winchester, the reunion of

Leyr and Cordelia, Porrex the fratricide done to death by damsels.

One barge, draped in white and purple, moralised the reconciliation

of Brennius and Belenus at the intercession of their mother. A great

galley in red and white bore Joseph of Aramathy and the Holy Grail, and

a choir of angels who sang of Christ's blood. Last of all came Alban

the protomartyr, pictured as he knelt to meet his death by the sword.

The day was blue and quiet, with hardly the shimmer of a cloud over the

intense gaze of the sky, while banners of rich cloth were hung over the

balustrades of the river terraces, and the gardens themselves were full

of gay folk who kept carnival, and watched the boats go by. The great

pageant galleys had hardly passed, and the small craft that had kept

the bank were swarming out into mid-stream, where a great barge with

gilded bulwarks and a carved prow came sweeping down like a swan before

the wind. It was driven by the broad backs of twenty rowers clad in

scarlet and gold. In the stern sat Gorlois, holding the tiller, with a

smile on his keen lips as a quavering clamour went up from the gardens

and the boats that lined the shallows.

By Radamanth's house Gorlois held up a hand, and the blades foamed as

the men backed water. The great barge lost weigh and lay motionless on

the dappled silver of the stream. Slowly it was poled in to the steps

that ran from the water's edge to the terrace of Radamanth's garden. A

light gangway was thrown ashore, and a purple carpet spread upon the

steps, while the men lined the stairway with their oars held spearwise

as Gorlois went up to greet Igraine.

Clad in white and gold, with a rose over her ear, she was sitting

between Radamanth and Lilith on a bench at the head of the stairway.

There was an implacable irresponsive look on her face as Gorlois came

up the steps and stood in front of her like a courtier before a queen's

chair. Radamanth and the merchant folk present were on their feet, and

uncovered; only Igraine kept her seat in the man's presence, and looked

him over as though he had been a beggar.

They were left alone together on the terrace, Radamanth shepherding

his merchant friends aside for the moment with the discreet desire

to please the count. Gorlois stood by the stairhead and told Igraine

the reason of his coming, as though she had not guessed it from the

moment his barge had foamed up beside the steps. He told her frankly

that he wished to speak to her alone, and that his barge gave her an

opportunity of hearing him without his having the advantage of her in

solitude, while the noise of oars would drown their words. Igraine

listened to him with a solemn face. She began to feel that she must

face her destiny and give the man the truth for good. Procrastination

would avail nothing against such a man as Gorlois. Being so minded, she

gave Gorlois her hand and hardened herself to satisfy him that day.

Away went the great barge before the strong sweep of the long oars.

Igraine watched the water slide by--foaming like a mill race as the

blades cut white furrows in the tide. The river gleamed with colour as

innumerable galleys, skiffs, and coracles drifted in the shallows or

darted aside to give passage to Gorlois's barge. Fair stone houses,

gardened round with green, slid back on either side. They passed the

spectacular galleys one by one, and the wooden wharfs packed with the

mean folk of the city, and foaming on under the great water-gate, drew

southward into the open country and the fields.

Igraine looked at Gorlois, and found his face impenetrable with

thought. A fillet of gold bound his hair, and he was wearing his

great sword, and an enamelled belt over his rich tunic. The cushions

of the barge had been sprinkled with perfumes, and the floor covered

ankle deep with flowers. Igraine groaned in spirit, and read the old

extravagance that had persecuted her so long, and made a mockery of her

love for Pelleas.

Gentle meads lapped greenly to the willows, giving place anon to woods

that seemed to stride down and snatch the river for a silver girdle.

The festival folk and their skiffs were out of sight and hearing, yet

Gorlois's barge ran on, to plunge into emerald shadows, tunnels whose

floors seemed of the blackest crystal webbed with nets of green and

blue, whose vaultings were the dense groinings of the trees. Not a

wind stirred. The great curving galleries in the woods were dark and

mysterious, the water like glistening basalt, the trees dreaming over

their own images in an ecstasy of silence. The foam from the oars was

very white, and the moist swish of the blades made the silence more

solemn by contrast, while the water seemed to catch a golden flicker

from the flanks of the barge.

Igraine knew well enough what was in the man's heart as he sat handling

the tiller, and watching her with his restless eyes. She was quite

cold and undisturbed in spite of her being at his mercy, and the

consciousness that in her heart she did not trust him vastly. Gorlois

had spoken only of the town, and they were running on under dense

foliage into the forest solitudes that edged the river. Yet Igraine had

faith in her own wit, and believed herself a match for Gorlois, or any

man, for that matter, save Pelleas. Gorlois passed the time by telling

her of his battles in Andredswold, how he had driven the heathen into

Thanet, and freed Andred's town from leaguer. Igraine began to wonder

how long it would be before he would turn to matters nearer to his

heart. She had marshalled up her courage for the argument, and this

waiting under arms for the bugle-call did not please her.

The day had already slipped into evening, for the water pageant was

ordered late, so that it might merge into a lantern frolic on the river

after dusk. Igraine, seeing how the light lapsed, told Gorlois to have

the barge turned for Winchester. She had hardly spoken when the boat

ran out from the trees into open water. In the west the sky was already

aflame, ridged tier above tier with burning clouds, while the blaze

fainted zenithwards into gold and azure. A queer cry as from a man

weary of torture came down from the west. On a low hill near the river,

bleak against the sky, stood a black concourse of beams set upright in

the ground, looking like the charred pillars of a burnt house. They

were crosses, and the bodies of men crucified.

Gorlois pointed to them with the evening glow on his face, and taking

a horn that hung at his belt, blew a loud call thereon. At the sound a

vulture rose from a crossbeam, and went flapping heavenwards--a black

blot against the scarlet frieze of the west. Others followed, like evil

things driven from their food. Again the cry, the wail from one who had

hung torn and wracked in the parching sun, came down from the darkening

hill.

Igraine shuddered and felt cold at the sound, and watched the figures

against the sky with a kind of awe.

"Who are these?" she said.

"Dogs from over the sea."

"Some are still alive."

"These pirates are hard; they die slowly, despite beak and claw. Such

be the death of all who burn holy houses and homes, and put women and

children to the sword."

"Take them down, or let them be killed outright."

"Never."

"At my prayer."

"What I have done, I have done."

"Cruelly."

"Cruelly, madame! You should have seen twenty dead nuns tied to stakes

as I have seen, and you would gloat and be glad as I am. By God, little

mercy had this offal at my hands in the glades of Andredswold. I burnt,

and crucified, and tore with horses. Mere steel is too good for such as

these."

"My lord!"

"What is hate unless it is hate? I can never brook an enemy to Britain."

Igraine had sudden insight into the core of Gorlois's nature. She

understood, in a vague, swift way, what primæval instincts were hid in

him ready at the beck of baser feelings such as jealousy or smitten

pride. Woman-like, she recoiled from a man whose strength was so

inflexible that it owned no pity or leavening kindness where malice

or anger was concerned. She loved strength, and the natural wrath of

a man, but she had no touch of the Semiramis about her, and her heart

could not echo Gorlois's wolf-like cry.

The rowers had turned the barge, and they were soon back again under

the shadows of the trees. It was dim and ghostly with the onrush of

night, while a faint fire flickered through the trees from the west

and touched the sullen water with a reddish flame. Gorlois's face was

in the shadow. He was leaning over the tiller towards Igraine, and

his eyes seemed to burn out upon her face and to make her heart beat

faster. She sat as much away from him as the gunwale suffered, and

looked ahead over the misty river, or up into the dense, black bosoms

of the trees.

The foamy rush of the oars and the grind of the looms in the rowlocks

half drowned Gorlois's words as he spoke to her.

"Igraine."

"My lord."

"You have read me to the heart."

Igraine turned and looked him full in the face. Now that the brunt had

come, she was strong and ready to tell the man the truth, though it

might be bleak and bitter to his pride. Gorlois was very near her, and

she could see his white teeth between his lips, and the glint of his

eyes as he leant towards her in the shadows.

"Are you ambitious, Igraine?"

"No, my lord."

"Not even a little?"

"My lord, I have no more ambition in me than one of those dead men

hanging athwart the sunset."

"You are a queer woman."

"Pardon, I have a conscience."

Gorlois bit his lip, stared in her face, and set a hand upon her wrist.

"You can never shirk me," he said.

"I never shirk the truth."

"Come now, give me the word."

"My lord, may I save you pain in the telling of it! You can never come

near my heart."

"Woman, never be so sure."

Gorlois drew back, and said never another word. Igraine watched him

furtively as his keen profile hung near her in the dusk clear as

marble. Now and again his eyes gleamed out upon her and made her fear

the moment, while the oars swung out over the smiling stream, and the

black woods started by like night.

Soon the lights of Winchester showed up against the northern sky,

and far ahead over a straight stretch of water they could see the

lanterns and torches of the folk who kept festival. A golden mist and

the noise of music came down to them, as they surged under the great

water-gate and ran on through the city amid a glimmering web of lights

and laughter. Soon the barge found the shallows under white walls, and

Igraine was standing on the steps leading to Radamanth's garden, with a

starry sky sweeping like a wheel above the world.

Gorlois went slowly from her down the steps, with a face that was dark

and brooding. Torchlight glimmered on the fillet of gold about his

hair, on the splendid setting of his baldric, and the scabbard of his

sword. At the water's edge he lifted up his face to her out of the

night.

"It shall be life or death," he said.

Then he was swept away with a red flare of torches over the river, and

Igraine went solemn-eyed to bed.

V

Not a word of Uther yet, no sound of his name in Winchester, though

Igraine lived on in Radamanth's house, and hoped for light in the dark.

Gorlois had had the truth, and she wondered what would come of it.

Lulled by an ingenuous reasoning into the belief that she would be

free of the man, she began to breathe again and to take liberty in her

hand. She did not think Gorlois could plague her longer after the blunt

answer she had given him. His pride would drag him aside, make further

homage impossible, and there the matter would end.

If Igraine believed this, then she was in very gross error. Many men

never show their true fibre till they are given the blunt lie, and

Gorlois was never more himself than when baffled. There was much of the

hawk about him, and Igraine had underrated his pride if she expected it

to take league with her against its kinsman passion. Her measure only

uncovered the darker side of the man's nature, and sounded the doom of

a lighter, gayer chivalry. Gorlois's pride and self-love never dragged

in the wind, but held him taut to the storm, as though determined to

weather all the perversities of which a woman's heart is capable.

In truth, Igraine had done the very thing least likely to free her

from the man's thought; she had taunted his passion and thrown down a

challenge to his pride.

Gorlois kept his own counsel, and frowned down the mischievous

curiousness of his friends when they laughed at him and asked how the

girl framed for a wife. He struck Brastias his squire to the ground for

daring to jest sympathetically on the subject. Those who went about

his house and hunted and diced with him soon found that he was in no

temper for light raillery or the sly privileges of an intimate tongue.

The fabric of a mere nice romance had stiffened into sterner, darker

proportions. There was the look of a dry desire in the man's eyes, a

lean hungry silence about him that made his men whisper. Some of them

had seen Gorlois when he hunted down the heathen. They knew his temper,

and the cast of his features when there was some lust of enterprise in

his heart.

About that time a knight came from Wales thrusting a woman's beauty

upon every man with the point of his spear. As had been his custom

elsewhere, he set up a green pavilion outside the walls, and daily rode

out armed to the sound of a trumpet to declare a certain Amoret of

Caerleon the fairest gentlewoman in Christendom. He was a big man, red

and burly, and had overthrown every like fanatic for love's sake on

this particular adventure. Gorlois heard of the fellow with no little

satisfaction. Every finger of him itched to spill blood, and he took

the deed on him, vowing it should be the last peace-offering to Igraine.

Arming one morning, he rode down and fought the Green Knight in his

meadow outside the walls. It took them an hour to settle the matter. At

the end thereof the errant from Wales was lying impotent and bloody in

his tent, and the name of Amoret aped the ineffectual moon. Afterwards

Gorlois rode into the town, war-stained as he was, found Igraine at her

window, and presented her the Green Knight's token on the point of his

spear.

It was a woman's sleeve in green silk, and edged with pearls. Igraine

saw a crowd of upturned faces about the man on the white horse.

His bright arms seemed to burn in upon her, and to light a sudden

impatience in her heart. She took the green sleeve from the spear, and

looking Gorlois full in the face, in reckless mood she threw the thing

down under his horse's hoofs.

There was a great hush all through the street at the deed, and Gorlois

started red as a man struck across the face with a whip. His eyes

seemed to grow large, like the eyes of an angry dog. Never had folk

seen him look so black. He stared up a moment at Igraine, shook his

spear, and trampling the green sleeve under the hoofs of his horse,

rode away without a word through the glum and gaping crowd.

Igraine had thrown down the glove with a vengeance. It was a mad enough

method of beating off the pride of a man such as Gorlois, whose temper

grew with the blows given, and who knew no moderation in love or in

hate. Gorlois had ridden home through the town that day to have his

wounds dressed, and to spend half the night in a fury of cursing. Yet

for all his bitterness he had the power of level thought, and of taking

ground for the future. He would read this woman a lesson; that much he

swore on the cross of his sword; and the early morning saw him again at

Radamanth's, strenuous to speak his mind.

The goldsmith happened to know that Igraine was alone in the garden.

Without noise or ceremony he sent Gorlois in to her, locked the door

on them both, and went to watch from a narrow window on the stairs. He

swore that Gorlois should have his own way, and not go balked for a

woman's whim.

Igraine was sitting sewing in the arbour of laurels with the little

gold cross hanging down over the bosom of her dress. A grass walk led

to the arbour between beds of flowers. As she sat stitching she heard

the sound of feet in the grass, and saw a shadow slanting across the

entry. She expected Lilith, but looking up, found Gorlois.

He was white from his wounds of yesterday and the blood he had lost

by the Green Knight's sword. His left arm lay in a sling of red silk.

Igraine noted in her sudden half-fear how his eyes were very bright,

and that his beard looked coal-black below his bloodless cheeks. There

was something in his face too that made Igraine cautious.

She rose and folded her embroidery in the most unperturbed and quiet

fashion, though she was thinking hard all the same. Gorlois watched

her, and held back for her to speak, with a hollow fire creeping

into his eyes, for the girl's passionless mood chafed him. He had no

gentleness towards her for the moment; such love as he knew had been

blown into a red beacon by starved and covetous desire.

"A word with you," he said.

The speech was rough and pertinent, showing the trend of the man's

purpose. He had abandoned superficialities. Igraine, gathering up her

silks, turned and faced him with the frankness of a full moon. Gorlois

saw her lips tighten, and there was a temper swimming in her eyes that

promised abundant spirit and no shirking. If he had launched out to

rouse her from passive antagonism, he could not have chosen a better

method.

Igraine made a step towards the house, but two strides put Gorlois in

her path.

"Make way--"

"Not a foot till you have the truth out of me."

"Have a care,--I will be stormed at by no man."

"Woman, look at me."

Igraine was looking at him with all the temper she could summon. If

Gorlois thought to ride straight over her courage, he was enormously

mistaken. She would match him for all his hectoring.

"If you are not a fool," she said, "you will end this nonsense, and go."

"Am I a scullion?"

"You should know, my lord."

"I have not bled for nothing."

"As you will."

"What have you to say to me?"

Igraine lost all patience, tossed her embroidery aside, and simply

flashed out at him with all her soul.

"Say!" she said; "I have somewhat to say, and that bitter; listen if

you will. You, Gorlois of Cornwall, who bade you make my name a byword

in Winchester? Listen to me,--hear the truth, and profit--you who

pestered me with mad tricks till I hated it all and held it insolence.

Who asked you to make me gossip for a city, did I? Who took your

presents? Who told you the truth? Who threw your token under the hoofs

of your horse to shame you? I have mocked you enough, now leave me in

peace, or rue it."

"By God, madame--"

"Don't echo me. Go, get out of my sight; I hate you!"

Gorlois flushed to the temples in this wind of passion. The girl looked

splendid to him in her great anger, her head thrown back and her eyes

steady on him as stars. The scorn of her beauty leapt over him like

crimson light, and he was more a sensation than a man. He had a great

thirst in him to grip her with his hands, to bend her straight body

as he would bend a bow, to strangle up the scorn in her throat with his

own breath. He went near her, stooping and staring in her face.

[Illustration: "A SUDDEN MADNESS WHIRLED GORLOIS AWAY"]

"Igraine."

"Mark my words."

"You golden shrew, you temptation of tempers--"

"Hold off--"

"By God! I'll tame you, don't doubt me."

Igraine, very watchful, slipped past him suddenly like light, and

walked for the house with a sweeping air that bade him keep his

distance. Coming to the door of the house, she tried it but found the

lock shot. The red badge of a new anger showed upon either cheek. She

turned on Gorlois; her eyes blazed out at him.

"A pretty trick!"

"What now, madame?"

"You had this door locked."

"Never."

"You lie in your throat."

"Radamanth--"

"Open it."

"I have no key."

Igraine's figure seemed to dilate and grow taller, and her eyes shone

well-nigh as bright in colour as her hair.

"Obey me."

"Not if I had the key."

"Obey me."

"I will be master before the sun is at noon."